Surprising Success Quotes

We made this movie for $17, and nobody got anything. So it never dawned on me that we would get real people.

When I was little, I had never really expected to win such a big competition. For a long time, just skating in the Olympics had been my goal because not many Koreans had done it.

But I never really thought that I would be extraordinarily successful at skating, it's just something that happened, you know.

The first time I picked up a bat in a professional game, I hit a ball hard left-handed, and my first home run was so effortless, it surprised me.

People ask me, 'Did you always want to be on SNL?' No, actually, it never crossed my mind. It didn't even seem possible. It would've been like saying, 'Hey, do you wanna go to the moon?'

It was amazing that a play that seems dated in this world... A man whose best friend is a six-foot white rabbit... But it caught on, especially with young people - they surprised me most of all.

I like being the underdog. I like turning around and shutting people up when they tell me I can't.

I had expected to be playing in the reserves and, all going well, that I might get a chance in the first team towards the end of the season. But it has all happened much faster than I could ever have thought.

Landing the role of Stephen Hawking was the most positively surprising thing that has happened to me.

I love when people underestimate me and then become pleasantly surprised.

I had such a good time doing that movie [Sister Act 2]. My daughter's in that movie. It was a fun film to do. And it shocked a lot of people, because they loved it, and they take it with them.

I love to sing and never thought I'd be able to do it, and it happened for me.

I come from a family of bankers and lawyers, and they joked that they can't believe I'm the one that gets to go to the White House.

'Dredd' was a weird little out-of-the-blue thing for me.

My rookie year in New England was mind-blowing.

Yes, there was a sort of underground cult following, which came from nowhere, and grew, and grew. It was quite surprising to us all, because all of us had spent probably the previous five to ten years without it. So it was quite overwhelming. Overwhelming and humbling.

We knew all along we were making a good show, so its success was not a surprise to me. What has surprised me is the magnitude of this show's success. More people see me now in one episode than saw me in 20 years of movies and theater!

Sometimes you don't play up to the mark, and you win even then.

The most exciting songs to me are the unlikely hits, when you think, 'I love this, but why is it on the radio?'

When you're having a conversation with someone who, despite his brilliant medical career, says he's going to produce the film, you think, "How's he gonna do this? Is he insane, or is he really going to pull this off? It might be both." It's really amazing to see someone do what he's done.

I never expected this to catch on in the way it did! Of course similar observations have been made by any number of people, and the distinction is obvious to anyone who thinks about the subject a little.

I think everyone, including myself, was pretty surprised the first Freedom goal came from me. So when I think about that goal, all I can really do is laugh at the incredibility of it.

We are not really privy to all that crazy stuff that goes on in the show. I go to work, eat, and talk about food. The wild things happen when we aren't around. I expected Top Chef to last three or four seasons and we are now shooting season ten.

We've got a lot of racing left, but when we're winning at places we're not supposed to, you better watch out.

The holy grail of recipe developing is the recipe that turns out so much more impressive than you would expect from the effort it took to produce.